What Love Was
by gostlcards
Summary: Love has always been an enigma to Emma Swan. Drabble, Charming Family fluffish.


_**AN:**__ just a drabble. I've had a few messages from people regarding one of my other stories, "Know My Ground" and I want to let everyone know, i'm not abandoning it, and I haven't; I'm just having a hard time writing it right now, but I am trying (i swear, i've rewritten some sections a few times, and it's just not flowing). I know it's been a couple months, but I'm getting there. I appreciate the patience. Until then, random drabbles will probably be all I'll be producing. Just a note of reassurance :) the charming family feels are what i need! I'm sure you guys know what I mean...if any of you haven't yet, check out BlueInk's "Moats and Boats and Waterfalls"; it's absolutely wonderful and heart wrenching in the best way. I'm fangirling a bit over her lol_

_Okay, onward...!_

* * *

Love has always been an enigma to Emma Swan.

She remembered a time, a time that seemed so forever ago but had really only been months, when she and Mary Margaret had sat in their living room and watched a really good, bad movie over wine and idle chit-chat. Mary was musing about David, and about Katherine and Emma was supplying sarcastic quips to go along with the sorrow.

"I don't know if I did...I mean, I think I did." Her face fell a little. "I thought he did. But obviously..."

"Love's not always easy, Mary Margaret." Emma had tried to comfort her, but Mary only shook her head. She began a soft rant about how she should've known better, that of course it wasn't love, that she was a fool, and then she went quiet and still. Emma let her sit and silently muse until her roommate looked up at her, a slightest hint of tears in her eyes.

"What even is love, really? I don't know if I've even experienced it."

When she was little, really little, Emma thought love meant cookies; like, the smell of them right out of the oven, and how they melted in your mouth when they were freshly baked, sweet and warm. It was like ingesting happiness. She could remember her foster mother's smiling face in front of her, crouched down at eye level, wiping chocolate from her nose.

Yeah. That's what love was.

Or what she thought it was. But then they lost their house, and were expecting a baby, and couldn't keep her; or, wouldn't be allowed to keep her, as CPS stepped in.

She'd had other foster mom's in her life, and not all of them were horrible people. Some even made her cookies. But none of them ever felt the same.

"Love is..." Emma had trailed off, having her own silent moment of thought before she began again. "It's trusting someone completely with yourself. Trusting your happiness with them, and your unhappiness. Trusting that through everything, they'll be with you regardless. And knowing you'll be that to them too."

Mary hung her head at that. "I would've been there for him." She said it so soft and sad, Emma barely heard it, but it made her chest ache all the same. A sense of loyalty overcame her and she reached for Mary's hand, taking it softly.

"Screw David Nolan. We'll be there for each other."

She had never, not loved Henry. From the moment they placed him in her arms, all 7 pounds, 5 ounces of him, she had loved him. And that was why she had let him go, because there was nothing she could give him but that, and he deserved the world. It had constantly amazed her, the pull she had felt to him in those few moments, and it made her wonder even more how anyone ever gave her away, how they could ever have cared for her if they had just left her by the woods.

And then everything changed, and Henry almost died. Everything in Storybrooke just _broke_, and she saw Snow White and Prince Charming almost die to protect their newborn child.

To protect her.

She wished that she could say that when she saw them in front of Granny's in the moments after the smoke cleared from Storybrooke, that she felt something good, but all she had known was resentment, and hurt, and anger. She had let them hold her for a moment, because she wasn't sure what else to do, and while the woman who hugged her looked like Mary Margaret, there was something different in her eyes that made it fairly obvious that this was different.

The look in both of their gazes had made her shift uncomfortably.

It turns out, a kid loving their birth parents wasn't like the love a parent has for their kid. It wasn't this automatic, awe-inspiring feeling that overwhelmed her so much; in fact, she had never in her life felt more numb to anything.

When she was little, after the cookie mom, she had dreamed of finding her parents anywhere-getting them accidentally as her new foster family, or having them show up to find her, and being happy, without the dark and twisty remnants of mistakes and regrets.

But as she got older and jaded, in her darkest teenage years, it was the opposite; she thought of how she would tell them she hated them, to go to hell, that she never wanted to see them again.

When she was in her twenties, all she wanted was answers.

She just didn't realize the answers would introduce a host of a hundred new questions.

Love, as it turns out, was a gradual process. It wasn't necessarily a bolt of lightning striking, but a series of soft moments that built into this great and wonderful thing. With Neal, it had been long mornings and stupid jokes. With David and Mary Margaret, it was so subtle, so innocent that she hadn't even realized it had happened until it was almost too late.

It was that feeling of falling when Cora strode toward Mary Margaret, arm outstretched to take her heart, or the twist in her gut as she saw David thrown from the pawn shop. It was the way Mary stroked her face when she thought Emma was sleeping when they were in the woods of the Enchanted Forest, and the way that somehow, David always seemed to stand in front of her when something or someone made a threat.

It was soft lips and strong words when she needed them most, while she stared into nothing, wondering how she could tell her 11-year-old that his father was _gone_. Knowing that if her knees buckled under all of this, that there would be strong arms to catch her before she hit the ground.

A tremble from the Earth deep below pulled her from her thoughts, and that panic, that twist in her gut was back as her eyes darted around. Henry was taken by Tamara and Greg, to a world she was hesitant to return to but had little choice in now as the town began to dissolve under their feet. Her eyes focused on a trio heading down towards the docks, her mother and father, hand in hand, and Regina following close behind, with an apparently permanent scowl upon her face. David just nodded to his daughter as he passed her, heading towards the Jolly Roger to speak with Hook, a soft squeeze to her bicep and a smile to try and make her feel a little better. A warm sensation blossomed in her chest.

Mary stopped to wait with her as Regina followed him, unloading a few hastily packed bags and a Tupperware container. Emma raised a brow.

"I made some cookies yesterday, and I thought I'd bring the rest of them, for the trip." Mary said, an easy smile on her face. She handed the container to Emma. "I know, stupid, right? Comfort food, I guess."

She couldn't understand why Emma hugged her and began to cry, but she didn't ask. She only hugged her back, right away, and whispered words of comfort.

Because that's what love was.


End file.
